Eldon Snow's speckled gourds were strapped to boards with duct tape -- their 112 3/4 and 108 1/4 inches a testament to their endurance through blazing sun, drenching rains and enervating humidity.
Snow, 68, measures 72 inches and is also a survivor -- of two strokes, two valve replacements, testicular cancer and a lifetime of hard work.
For 30 years, Snow has been growing prize-winning gourds. Last year, he set the record at the Dixie Classic Fair -- and in the state -- with a 111 1/2-inch gourd. This year's fair begins today.
He admires gourds for their toughness, he said.
"Goats won't eat gourds," he said. "If you find something a goat won't eat, you've accomplished something."
He doesn't raise gourds for the money -- a first-place prize brings a mere $8 -- or even for the bragging rights, Snow said. It's the challenge of coaxing a little extra life from what the elements give you each year.
Come May, after the danger of frost has passed, Snow plants seeds that look like whisk brooms beneath the 150-inch arbor he
built in the back of his Yadkinville home.
He grows what are called "long handle" gourds. He prefers the term ball-bat gourds.
He used to grow dipper gourds, but he switched when he found out that the ball-bat gourds would grow a few inches longer. He already held the record for dipper gourds and wanted a new challenge, he said.
Growing things is in Snow's blood, but as a young man growing up on a tobacco farm in Yadkin County, he didn't exactly feel as if the work was in his heart, he said.
"I wasn't interested in it at the time because it was a lot of work," he said.
Nevertheless, one of his earliest memories is of seeing his mother growing gourds. It's a happy memory, he said.
Removing the suckers
Come July, Snow climbs a ladder and runs his hands gently along the tangled vines, snipping off the smaller suckers so that the vine can put all of its energy into growing the longest, healthiest gourd possible.
During the dry, hot days of high summer, dreams of gourd greatness shine like the early-morning dew. The hanging gourds lengthen and turn a darker green.
Snow climbs the ladder each morning, measures how much the gourd has grown, and notes its length in pen, like the growth marks of a child. During hot weather, a gourd will grow 5½ inches a day.
"When you go out at night and you can hardly get your breath, that's when they really grow," he said.
When a gourd is in its growth spurt, Snow said, it's like a pet.
He lavishes attention on it, giving it a mixture of water, fish and a special seaweed mixture that he orders -- but not too much attention, or the gourd will split clean through its skin. Snow has a few secrets that have to do with soil and fertilizer that he doesn't want published.
Still, the path to gourd greatness does not run in a straight shot from arbor to ground.
September's late-afternoon sun can fry a gourd, so Snow borrowed a technique from pumpkin growers, who put giant tinfoil shields around their vegetables to deflect heat.
Last year Snow's gourd got too close to the ground and it curved out.
"My wife said, ‘That's the ugliest gourd I've ever seen,' he said. "I don't care how ugly they are, just so they get long,".
This year's August cool spell and rains ended Snow's hopes for a world-record gourd of about 127 inches.
By the time he got to the fair, he had strapped his gourds to a board with duct tape to keep them from cracking.
That is allowed under fair rules, said Charlie O'Dell, who has been judging such exhibits for 25 years. O'Dell is a retired associate professor of horticulture at Virginia Tech and a retired Virginia extension specialist in horticulture.
He said that the fair's rules are very strict. Gourds are measured with a tape measure. And the gourd must be in good enough condition to make it through the fair's run.
This year, Snow's 112¾-inch gourd was disqualified. It started leaking after it was put up for display. But the other gourd, the 108 1/4-inch one, squeaked ahead of a 108 1/8-inch one raised by a man in North Wilkesboro to win first prize.
"Aw, shucks. How about that?" Snow said when he was told the news.
Friendly competition
The world of competitive vegetable growing is largely one of friendly competition and helpfulness, Snow said. He belongs to the N.C. Giant Vegetable Growers Association, which publishes a newsletter, maintains a Web site, and is open to people all over the world.
Members pay $10 for a personalized membership card and information about seed exchanges and other activities.
Growers compete at a series of regional competitions around the Southeast.
Jim Sherwood, who lives in Mulino, Ore., and belongs to the Pacific Giant Vegetable Group, calls the hobby, "extreme gardening." He said that it attracts an eclectic bunch of people.
"It's got to be somebody that's competitive, who likes to grow things," Sherwood said, "and who likes to do things out of the mainstream."
Most of those who grow such things as giant pumpkins tend to live up north, he said. In recent years, through networking, people have been figuring out how to grow giant vegetables in such places as Hawaii, Arizona and the Southeast. There are groups in Europe as well as Australia.
"You've got people growing them in backyards in the middle of the city, and then you've got people growing them on farms," he said. "It's kind of the little niche you carve for yourself."
But even friendly competition can go sour when you're competing for the adulation of your giant-vegetable-growing peers and a chance to have your photo on a giant-vegetable growers' Web site.
Two years ago, Snow gave a man some gourd seeds, and the man grew gourds big enough to wrest the prize from Snow at the Dixie Classic Fair.
"After he beat me, he never had a thing to do with me," Snow said.
When Snow won last year at the fair, the man tracked Snow down again and asked for those seeds.
"I'm still friends with him," Snow said, "but he isn't going to get any seeds."
■ Mary Giunca can be reached at 727-4089 or at mgiunca@wsjournal.com.
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